Big Mac vs Whopper taste test.

To see visit the following link:
http://www.bannerblog.com.au/news/2008/12/whopper_virgins.php
Amazing, engaging and ingenious!

Happy Christmas

2008 in photographs

We stumbled across a stunning collection of images summing up a few of this years big events. With 40 images in total its worth taking 5 minutes out of your day to reflect on the ups and downs of the past year.
The series was collected by the brilliant "news stories in photographs" site: www.boston.com/bigpicture.

Here are some of our favorites:


"Photographers take pictures of an injured man during clashes believed to be linked to recent anti-foreigner violence in Reiger Park informal settlement in South Africa on May 20, 2008."


"Staff stand in a meeting room at the Lehman Brothers offices in the financial district of Canary Wharf in London September 11, 2008. Lehman Brothers eventually filed for bankruptcy."


"Samuel Peter from Nigeria receives a punch from Vitali Klitschko of Ukraine during their WBC heavyweight boxing world championship fight in Berlin."


"Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, the world's first man to fly with a jet-powered fixed-wing apparatus strapped to his back, flies during his first official demonstration, on May 14, 2008 above Bex, Switzerland."

The collection is split into three sections: 1/3---2/3---3/3

Since we've been apart.

My brother recently made this nice (yet a little depressing) booklet for his ex girlfriend. It has that "arrr i know how you feel, mate" quality to it. We've all been there and we'll all probably be there again, lets just hope we learn from it all..
To view the booklet full size, click on the animation below.

-

Andy is a brilliant young designer who helped us on Ape, among a number of other projects, check out: www.andycallahan.co.uk

Movember been and gone.

For those of you who didn't participate in 'Movember' the name might not be instantly familiar, so just think of it as Novembers' hairier sibling. To celebrate Movember (A Moustache in November) members are asked to cultivate a hairy upper lip for 30 long, whole days.

It's been an emotional journey but we must now bid farewell to our bushy cock-blocks. Right before we shaved the bad boys off we took an essential memorial picture.


Tim (Left), James (Up), Will (Right), Joe (Down)

RIP Tash.

Find out the truth behind Movember here.

Cyriak

Cyriak is a Brighton Based animator whose warped animations have probably mashing your melon somewhere on the internet before, whether you knew it or not.
Apparently his videos are an attempt to visualizes the insane world inside his head, and we love it.
One day I hope we might be lucky enough to collaborate with this young man from my seaside.
Check out a collection of his greatest fits below.

Please visit www.cyriak.co.uk

You Tube Mixes

Some creative twists on the youtube standard, found on the great I Heart Photography blog.

Homo Promo

"Right-wing evangelical groups accuse gay people of having an agenda to promote homosexuality… What would it look like if this ridiculous idea were true? GT approached advertising agencies and asked them to work up some campaigns that would sell ‘Homosexuality’ as an unbearably appealing choice and recruit to the cause. This is what they made for us. Read what the ad creators said about the thinking behind their work in the November issue of GT."
– GT Magazine, November 2008

As friends of the GT team, we got involved in this months Homo Promo feature, below is our execution (Interview here).


– "Anything she can do..."

See all the contributors ads on the Facebook page, or read the magazine and hear the different thought processes behind each concept.

Is Jesus a friend of yours?

Zap!

Cursive Buildings

We all loved the Sleeve Face phenomenon that swept the nation, then it just become a little "done". Don't fret however, as now we have Cursive Buildings (I think that's what they're called??).
Created from animated gif's of usually 2 images "Cursive Buildings" create 3 dimensional perspective by adjusting the pictures visual layers.

See more of these brilliant yet possible epileptic fit educing images at:
CursiveBuildings.com

Shake like a Jelly

We'd like to say a big thanks to the lovely Marina Orlova for mentioning our YouTube account, KeirsCallahan, in her highly informative "Shake it like Jello" video.

Ever found yourself tormented by the ignorance of not knowing where the word flabbergasted comes from? Us too. But don't worry, Marina, aka HotForWords, was there to help:


"Shake it like Jello"

Sometimes it can be a bit of a chore to express exactly how you're feeling, but thanks to everyones favourite Russian philologist that struggle exists no more. Tackling a plethora exciting words and phrases each week, Marina is the #1 - most subscribed 'Guru' on YouTube. If you're yet to see the best of her oeuvre, click here to browse the words already covered.

YouTube
Official Website

Thanks also to Tim for alerting us of our long awaited mention! "Another mystery solved by your trusty HotForWords."

Bringing the creative portfolio right up to date.

This week Campaign magazine ran the feature:


Bringing the creative portfolio right up to date
by Matt Williams Campaign 11-Sep-08, 15:00

Creative graduates are now showcasing their work on the web. Creative chiefs review four online portfolios.

Guess what, we may not quite be graduates yet (1 year to go), but they were kind enough to give us a mention anyway!

Will Awdry, creative partner at Ogilvy and previously of DDB & BBH fame, nominated our site for the article.

At first we were apprehensive, we simply haven't had time to update the site for a few months. Having recently made huge changes to our print portfolio, updating the layout, adding new work, and binning a lot of old ideas, we had planned to tackle the online version next. However it seemed we had nothing to worry about, Will Awdry had given us a brilliant report.

Below is a section of the Campaign article.
The whole article can be read in the current issue of Campaign or online at www.brandrepublic.com/Campaign

-

Joe Keirs and James Callaghan, unattached
Apprasied by Will Awdry creative partner, Ogilvy

Among legions of toads, Joe and James' oeuvre is a real prince. Granted, they don't leave a phone number and the telly wasn't loaded in when I saw it, but their stall is positively groaning. Some of the ideas are clever, some dangerous and some, well, plain demented.

There's a parody of the Coke "11.30am" spot for the Dairy Council. It's a little extreme.

They have tucked into a British Library brief using offal as their medium. A Photoshop, stop-frame dancing cat fronts an estate agent.

There are nice ideas for Ted Baker window displays, an exquisite homage to Eric Gill for Leeds University's visual identity and an approach to possible cottaging locations that balances serious intent with understandable provocation.

The team posts snapshots of themselves, like strange refugees from Wet Wet Wet, but they're deeply ironic, so that's alright.

There's a Flickr section, a blog, some great YouTube picks and a shed-load ?of other stuff. The site is copyrighted and they even run a shop from it.

The assembly evidences great craft and wit. I don't like all of it and some ideas are naïvely gauche, others a little familiar.

I'm not really sure whether they know if they are designers or ad people. They clearly don't give a toss about what sort of media channel they operate in.

I was able to absorb all of this in five minutes.

Of course, I'm now eager to meet them. They've used the medium du jour to get themselves across to their audience - creative directors - in a smartly digestible way.

As it stands, their "portfolio" doesn't guarantee them a job, nor would I give up on hard-copy cousins as a result. But it does put them out there in a highly seductive competitive set.

www.JamesandJoe.co.uk

-



Our good friends from the old D&AD workshop days, Eddie Fisher and Charlie Hurst also got a mention for their brilliant and ever so slightly homo erotically titled site www.eddielovescharlie.com.
Well done boys, and congrats on Kittcatt Nohr.

Barkley video

Check out this insane and beautiful video from Gnarls Barkley. Even the casting is perfect, the every couple, the you, the me, that breakup. These guys rarely disappoint with their videos, possibly because they are willing to take a risk and do something differnt.


The video reminds us of a lovely little shoot we did a little while back.

The art of commentry

Having started out enjoying the comment culture over at Jai & Wal's blog Creative in London, James and I are beginning to get a little surprised by the bitter taste of negative comments that seem to stalk many of their posts. It seems like they have an audience that deliberately go on their blog to leave scathing criticism. But Jai & Wal love it, as they still allow anonymous posting... which is great, so all opinions remain welcome.

Fortunately for James & I we don't seem to have that problem just yet. Averaging around -2 comments per post, our blog is like a silent ninja (The sexy way of saying no-one reads it). So amongst all this comment chat, we found ourselves reading an article by Toby Francis from Cracked.com. It's brilliant countdown of the top Obnoxious Internet Commentors out there.


#8. The Non-Believer

Maybe you could reply to this post as someone from the list? Or maybe not.

Sexy species

"The ugly redheaded stepchildren of the animal kingdom don’t get much attention compared to the perennial endangered animal favorites like pandas, polar bears, and owls" says Sara in a feature on webecoist.com. This particular feature hosts a handsome collection of "the world's weirdest endangered species".

Having checked out the showcase, I'm once again amazed by the everlasting power of looking at... freaky beasts. It certainly is a hard to match pleasure, and also vaguely educational. Who would have thought the below amphibian, technically half-snake half-man, would usually live to 100?


Mr. Olm

Here's another, less informative, site that exhibits some of the world's even better looking creatures. There's genuinly something for everyone, if you like cute check out the komondor, if you're more of a 'eugh' girl then knock on this Star-nosed mole's door, and who wouldn't want to go to the disco with this little shaker:


Mr. Axolotl

But if this is all too contemporary for your freaky beast needs, there's a collection of ten extinct animals here, some charming illustrations.

"Maybe if she looks at this image she will understand and become my wife again."

After reading about the sad extinction of Polaroid film on the This is how I roll blog I came across the above image by Vava Ribeiro.
It is part of Dazed Digitals article Polaroid Nation. Its a beautiful and emotive image, even more so when you read the artist's credit.
-
Vava Ribeiro - 'This one I shot of the TV wile watching Brooke Shields on Blue Lagoon. That movie had such an impact on me. Here Brooke looks like my future-ex wife minus the blue eyes. I don't think she (my ex) knew that. Maybe if she looks at this image she will understand and become my wife again.'

Blogging made easy

We've known about Google reader for a while now, but have only recently started using it to its full potential. It's a great application that will make your blog browsing that little bit easier, collecting all the new posts from your favourite blogs and putting them in one place. Simple.


Google Reader explained

As part of our university course, our year group have been encouraged to keep a blog on anything they deem of interest. It's a great collection of around 100 students recording/ remarking on things they find intriguing in the world today.

By creating a folder in your Google reader and adding these blogs you can check on all the new posts without having to visit each page individually, making it very easy to keep up to date with everyone.

So, to save you entering all 100 or so of our coursemates blog links into your Google readers, we've exported it all here for you to download. It can also be found on our right hand bar for future use. Once you have downloaded the file simply go into google reader, click on Manage subscriptions (at the bottom left), then Import/Export, and just upload the file.

Hopefully, this application can help increase the activity across our blogs and start to see their full potential by seeing what people are talking about and increasing discussion in the comment sections.

After reading this particularly boring copy, here's some eye candy:

Axe ambient advertising

People are saying ambient advertising is getting a little dated and questioning its effectiveness, we are beginning to see their point.

However you can help laugh at the axe ad, inspired.

Sexy People

Sexy People is a huge collection of those photos from the days you where a bit ugly. Some absolute classics on there, the above image being one of them. We only wish we had half the charisma and looks these guys do.

Hair cuts

My girlfriend got her hair cut yesterday. I haven't seen it yet, however she tells me it's quite a drastic change. I'm wonder if it looks anything like this:

To see more of these brilliant creations click here.

Paul Wruiz

Some of the most stunning and emotive paintings we have seen in years.
Indulge your eyeballs on the artists (Paul Wruiz) website
Thanks to Louise Daniels for pointing us in his direction.

Taxi keeps tramps warm and dry.

"In 2007, TAXI celebrated 15 years of success. To mark the occasion, they wanted a big idea, one that would give back to the community." So they invented a jacket, but this was no ordinary jacket it had lots of pockets. Now thats what we call a big idea.

Ok so there was a little more to it.

"The jacket would be breathable, waterproof, lightweight, and the lining would be made up of pockets throughout. And these pockets would be able to be stuffed with newspaper to provide adjustable levels of insulation from the cold."

We're shocked at just how good a jacket stuffed with newspaper can actually look, let alone work.
There is a site dedicated to the jacket 15belowproject.org where you can get a load more info on the jacket, you can even see it being tested in a humongous freezer.

Our only problem is if you aren't a homeless man/woman sleeping on a sidewalk in America somewhere, you don't seem to be able to get your hands on one. Wouldn't they be great for the weight conscious backpacker or festival goer, we recon they would be an autumn essential here in the UK.

Wazzup

I'm sure you culture heads are ahead of the game on this one, however.

We only just found out this classic Bud Wazzup ad:


Is based (this term is used very loosely) on this short film directed by Chuck Stone


It actually works seamlessly for the brand.
So instead of criticizing the creatives for copying (as so many people seem to do in these circumstances), perhaps we should commend their genius for spotting the film and associating it with Bud.

Videos for the bored

If you can forgive the school boy giggling and "awsome" comments from the camera man its actually quite ingenious.

Next is a classic test of the Titans. A battle between new technology and old fashioned craftsmanship.
The voice over for the Japanese man is possibly even more entertaining than the dual itself.


Now get back to work!

Copy Writer

I just chanced upon these ads for Manix Condoms.



Nope, I'd never heard of Manix either, which doesn't exactly fill me with faith.

On a (un)related note, I recently tore open a pack of Mates to find them decorated with a limp comic sans typeface staring back at me, it didn't help too much. Of all the tone of voices to choose from and my condom manufacturer goes for comic sans. Not sure that was the best choice, perhaps the thinking went: Mates - Friendly – Playful – Childish..Already not heading in the best direction for a sex cap. I wanted to show an example of the guilty subject, but the only image I can find is of a Mates condom for the 'smaller gentleman', here's what they look like, but I'd like to point out that wasn't the specific product I was operating with. Anyway, not the point..



So anyway, I recognised the copy from HMV's line, which is the same – Though not exactly heading in quite the same direction. HMV's Get Closer project seems pretty big, worth a look. There's an article from April on their social network concept here.



Wonder how many different brands use the exact same lines for completely different purposes (Call it trivial curiosity, perhaps).

Mars define the new 'gay'

Shocking facts have revealed that speedwalking = homosexuality. Just watch, the proof is here:



Or maybe not. But Mars have still chosen to withdraw the advert on the basis that it might be a little too homophobic (according to someone. maybe. possibly).

If anything, shouldn't Mars be worried about upsetting the harmony of the speed-walking community?! They've had it easy for a long time. Lucy Mangan from The Guardian comments on her frustration with speedwalkers: "Either walk or run properly, for God's sake! To watch someone fight against every human urge to propel themselves across ground as quickly and efficiently as possible is agonising! Make it stop!"

A short while ago another Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO ad was pulled (remember the highly provocative Heinz Mayo ad which made the word explicit seem rather beige). Perhaps it's time Heinz and Mars got some nuts* and stopped giving in to all the homophobes out there.

Sexy pic & more info here.

When in doubt, how would Eddie Murphy answer all this?


* Someone had to say it.

Mach Daddy

Continuing from our last post, we're still increasingly fascinated with the McCain and Obama slanging match. In fact, it's often pretty funny to watch how adverts and brands attempt to show up their rivals, whether it's AOL v NetZero, Nokia v Apple, or Tesco v Asda....on that note, what's also interesting is the youtubes out there doing this already, you probably remember this one.

So amongst all this nonsense, I find myself watching the latest series of gillette advertisements where instead of opting for a gentleman's fisticuffs with Wilkinson Sword (who?), they go straight for the self-flagellation. Now, in my world, Gillette reached a conclusion a few years back when they invented the Mach 3. The perfect razor. What's with all the new products?! Well, it turns out a lot of people are of the same thinking. So instead of really focusing on the brilliance of the new gillette fuscia, or whatever its called, they have to literally beg you to fuggetabout the Mach 3. No, that's wrong, they want to force it from your hands. It's pretty violent...



Gillette fuscia or not, I'm sticking with my house-mate's Mach 3 for now.

Oh, Bummer

From one vision of a celebrity Jesus to another...

If anyone's not seen the recent advertisements from Republican HQ, approved by 'the original maverick' Mccain ("I'm John Mccain and I approve this message"), check them out...

Celebrity B.O.


Jesus B.O.


Please don't let these advertisements be the reason Obama loses. Seriously please.

--

Whilst we're on the subject, what on earth is this whole 'too thin to win' thing?!

"He has been called too arrogant, too remote and too clever by half, but last week Senator Barack Obama was hit below the belt with a cruel new allegation: he may be too skinny to win the White House."
Times Online.

Apparently there's been a great deal of concern that America isn't ready for a slim leader. With 2/3 voters overweight & 30% obese it could be too much to be confronted with. Now, I don't want to get into topless politicians again – but I didn't think Bush was looking overtly chunky last time he got papped on the beach. Anyway, enough of my body dysmorphia - back to Obama...


Great Delts

Jesus! It's Jesus!

Before Celebrity Chiefs and Big Brother contestants people used to follow a man named Jesus. He's not been around for a while but we found these pictures on JC's social networking page. He is quite the Hunk.

Skip This

Oliver Bishop Young has turned simple skips into an amazing array of structures. With property prices falling what better way to create that little bit of extra room.


You could even have that pool you always dreamt of.

The recent graduate from Goldsmiths University is also working on an ingenious site. Members of the public are invited to make most of all the humble skips in their town: www.skipwaste.org.uk

-Oliver Bishop Young

-Dezeen Design Magazine also have a few nice words to say about this clever gent here.

Fiat Grande Punto - Engineered to Entertain

People love a classic copy story.
Does it matter where the peoples inspiration comes from, should all ideas be original?

"Fiat is bouncing its new Series 2 Grande Punto on a trampoline for a TV commercial that introduces the strapline 'Engineered to entertain'." The spot, directed by music video specialist Michael Gracey, cost a hansom £500,000 to create, and is sure to wow most who set eyes on it.

The new Fiat Punto advert.


However there is an issue....It is pretty much the same as the below video, just, with a car,
Surly the similarities are so strong, the same people must have been involved in both films, however I can't find any proof of this..


You can read more about the new Fiat Punto advert here.

What do you guys think??

How to sell a house.

Who needs the rich smell of freshly brewed coffee or even the wholesome scent of warm baked bread to sell a house. If you have it, flaunt it, thats what we say.

Thats no monster, thats my man!

These characters are just amazing. You can't really beat that weird bird ghost just flapping around. I wonder how the ghostbusters would deal with the Jackfruit ghost.. Such a special ad..

Here comes the summer

Warning, don't watch this if you're of a sensitive disposition, it's arguably disgusting...



...Though pretty impressive going past the rails, 0:29.

The Illustrated Ape Arrives!

Just the other day we saw the release of our editorial debut, The Illustrated Ape "Photographers of the Urban Apocalypse" issue. As our first step into the world of magazine art-direction, it's been an absolutely amazing process. The editors, Mike Sims & Christian Pattison, gave us total freedom with the issue. + Given the opportunity to commission photographers of our choice, we were able to meet some great people – whose help we are eternally grateful for!

For those of you that aren't familiar with the publication, it's a creative showcase of "fiction, poetry, pictures, and pop." Better still, there's an About Ape section on the website where a more thorough picture is painted.


A sneak peak

Whilst our issue explores photography, Ape has previously been solely illustration based. Though our somewhat abstract headers borrow a lot from the illustrative nature of the magazine's past. On that note, we also ran a feature whereby we asked illustrators to create a photographic self portrait. So, hopefully the issue's transition to photography isn't too revolutionary.

From buttered bottoms to Ape 'tart cards', we tried to have a bit of fun with the mag, though as the "Photographers of the Urban Apocalypse" theme would suggest, the humour can be a bit dark in places. But anyway, we'd love for you to check it out – It was lots of fun to make, so hopefully it's fun to read!





If you're passing a Borders, Magma, or perhaps a Modern Tate - you should be able to see the mag (There's a full list of stockists on the site). Alternatively you might even want to purchase something online/ from the ape back-catalogue, try the Ape Shop if so.

"Photographers of the Urban Apocalypse" preview – Click to enlarge:

Who would play you, in your life story?

I think Alfonso Ribeiro aka Carlton, would have to play Joe.

The King of Kong

Assuming you might not have seen the film, I'm going to have to start by saying that "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters", directed by Seth Gordon, is an absolutely brilliant documentary. Essentially, it's a classic David & Goliath challenge, whereby Goliath is known as the "greatest arcade-video-game player of all time", aka Billy Mitchell. The cameras watch as science teacher Steve Weibe comes straight out of no-where to challenge Billy's Donkey Kong record...which has stood towers above anyone for 25 years.


Billy Mitchell modestly enjoys the first ever Perfect Pac-Man score

Yep, I too thought he was just some guy from Albert Square, but having now seen 'The King of Kong', I know Billy Mitchell to be a true star. Whilst there's Ricky Gervais in 'The Office', Bill Murray in 'Kingpin' etc (Both of them total legends), the fact that Billy is real makes him so much better. He's such a great character to sit back and watch. I wouldn't want to say the words myself but meghan-ign, from blogs.ign.com, sums him up as "the perfect villein. He's vein, hypocritical, arrogant, and hilariously out-of-touch. It's pretty hard to make up lines like "everything I say is controversial--it's like the abortion issue" and "Helen of Troy didn't get this much attention.""

He's also well known for his popular food chain "Rickey's World Famous Restaurant" (There's a lot more to him than video games), the brand sell a whole range of hot sauces, but that's beside the point. Though there is a brilliant scene where Billy explains how tough the sauce industry is, and proceeds to go into the stores himself to re-locate his products in front of the competitors – Dignity remains at an all time high.


Walter back in the Day

The brilliant thing about this movie is that Billy is far from the only star. Amongst many others, veteran referee (/video game folk musician) Walter Day is also a real gem. Like everyone else, he got into the computer game industry for the obvious reason, "I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, "Hi, I see that you're good at Centipede.""

The documentary is full of people whose total genius you could never begin to script, plus there's a great soundtrack (The DVD menu is something else), and, strangely enough, one of the most gripping storylines I've seen in a while.



If you're in doubt, feel free to ask us anything about the flick.

Theo Jansen

Re-invention of the wheel
&
New forms of life
= A youtube definitely worth watching.

+ A million other talks worth listening to on www.ted.com

Stu

We are soon to be releasing a whole new range of shirts.
To make sure everything goes to plan, and we still have time to do all the other things we do, we have enlisted the help of a man named Stu.

So if you would like to know anything about our T-Shirts, Stu wants to hear from you.

You can reach him on stu@jamesandjoe.co.uk

I Love Family Living

Who would have thought James & Joe would be making family life in Sweden that little bit sweater. The absolutely lovely Swedish magazine "Family Living" loved our T-Shirt so much they did a little feature on it. If you are lucky enough to speak Swedish and would like to see a large version on the page CLICK HERE.

The very kind and beautiful Isabelle Halling contacted us about the T-Shirt a little while back and asked about adding it to her regular column. Not only does Isabelle write for "Family Living", host a interior decorating show on TV, and write an online blog, she has also recently become a mother. Well done Isabelle. As soon as we have baby Tees made one will be flying your way.